People were also asked to rate how free the press and broadcasters were in their country to report the news truthfully and without undue bias.

Perceptions varied widely among developing countries, ranging from 81% giving a high rating in Kenya, to 41% in Mexico.

In India, 72% of respondents thought their media were free, compared with just 36% in Singapore.

Honesty

But some developed countries which strongly believed in press freedom were critical of their own media's honesty and accuracy.

In the United States, Britain and Germany, only around 29% of those interviewed thought their media did a good job in reporting news accurately.

Chris Coulter, vice-president of GlobeScan, the company that led the research, says: "Despite the fact that people in Britain really value freedom of the press, when we asked specifically around news organisations how they're doing in reporting news accurately and truthfully, respondents were quite critical."

"Only about a third of people in Britain actually gave positive ratings to either publicly-funded news organisations or privately-funded news organisations."

He says he was quite surprised by this finding, but points out that the research was conducted during October this year, when trust in the BBC and other public service broadcasters in Britain had been hit by a series of phone-in problems and other editorial lapses.

Owners' views

The survey also identified concern in some countries over the concentration of private media ownership in the hands of fewer large companies.

In Brazil, Mexico, the United States and Britain, more than 70% of respondents agreed with the suggestion that ownership was an issue because the owners' political views emerged in the news.

Germans had a particularly poor view of their private media companies - with just 18% giving them a high rating for accurate news.

But overall, publicly-run news organisations were viewed slightly more negatively than ones run for profit.

Only in Egypt, Germany, Russia and Singapore did people rate the public media more than privately-owned media companies.

The poll was conducted by the international research firms GlobeScan and Synovate, as part of a season of programmes marking the 75th anniversary of BBC World Service. Polling in six of the countries was in major urban areas only.